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ON International Women’s Day, Kashmiri Lal Zakir came across a picture in a newspaper of a woman sweeping the streets (the said picture is on this book’s cover). This impelled him to investigate various facts about the condition of women in Indian society. Women face challenges at different planes of their existence, both within and outside their familial bounds, viz personal, financial, social and political. Although it is said that women in India got their constitutional rights without putting up a struggle, which contrasts with what their sisters in the West had to endure, the Indian women never had an easy time in their quest for benefits from the relevant constitutional provisions. Although the struggle is going on for reserving seats in Parliament for women, it needs to be mentioned that women like Mayawati and Jayalalitha, Mamta Banerjee and Sonia Gandhi have made their mark in politics on sheer personal merit.
Through persistent agitations for their rights in 1945, the UNO adopted a charter in San Francesco giving equal rights to women. In India, with the dawn of Independence, women were given rights like universal suffrage and also to be people’s representatives in various elected and statutory bodies. They have been occupying various seats of power even during the Independence struggle, in which they took a leading part. Till date no woman in America has been able to become the President so far, whereas in India already we have had women as Prime Minister as well as President. It is a little known fact today; a fact that changed the course of history. We all know that the International Day for Women is observed on March 8 every year. Interestingly, historians point out that, in Russia, demonstrations marking this day proved to be the first stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917! Although this volume is not about the how and why of Women’s Day, its 10 short stories are women-centric and interrogate the different aspects of women’s condition. The Indian woman’s struggle has been more on the domestic and social planes rather than political. Although eulogised as a goddess, with her roles as mother, sister and daughter glorified, she remains a virtual non-entity in most of the households when it comes to decision making and owning property – celebrating womanhood is still an upper-class phenomenon in India. However, it would be wrong to say that her plight is all tragedy. Slowly but surely she is getting emancipated, nay, empowered. To quote a poet, "Watan walo isey tum bekas-o-majboor mat samjho/Yehi aurat kisi din mulk ki tasveer badlegi." Optimistic, but not
overly.
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In
the West, women had to struggle hard to get social equality. In 1793,
at the time of the French Revolution, women in Paris raised their
voice against the ill treatment meted out to women in Europe. They
demanded freedom and equality for themselves. Thus, the agitation
triggered off an awakening among the women. In the 19th century, the
industrial revolution brought many changes in the social status of
women and opened the way for their political and individual
emancipation. In 1911, on March 19, the International Day for Women
was observed in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. On March
25, 1911, 140 women labourers were burnt in a fire in New York,
triggering off changes in the United States’ labour laws.